30

Jun

2022

Bethany and Edward’s Colourful, Fun Loving DIY Country Wedding in Dartmoor by Emma Stoner 

Today I am whisking you off to beautiful Dartmoor for the gorgeous wedding of Bethany and Edward.  This wedding is a mixture of Australia (Beth’s side) meets England (Ed’s side) with a whole lot of colour thrown in for good measure. The wedding was unintentionally DIY but this resulted in some super personal elements to the day and lots of involvement from friends and family. With delicious food to add to the celebration this country wedding is laid back, full of fun and full of personal details. Big thanks to Emma Stoner for the lovely images.

Our wedding was a fusion of Australia and England throughout the whole day, from ceremony, to food and even music on the dance floor. It was a sunny day in the countryside, eating tasty food surrounded by family and friends.

Bethany and Edward were married on 11th May 2019 at St Michael’s Ilsington & Neadon Barn in Dartmoor. ‘Ed’s dad was the vicar at the church in Islington and we were lucky enough to have him marry us. We thought having a wedding on Dartmoor would be quintessentially English for Australian family and friends coming for the wedding. We had 115 guests. We were only engaged for 8 months so had to get moving quickly on big decisions like finding a venue.’

How they met 
We met on a church ski trip in Switzerland, we were friends for 3 years before we started dating in 2017.

The proposal
Ed took me to my favourite café in East London for breakfast and a walk around Victoria Park – he got down on one knee (after getting a little confused on where in the park he was) and proposed very early in the morning. This was great so we could call family and friends with the time zone and enjoy the rest of the day together.

How did you allocate your budget?  
We are both in finance so obviously by using a big spreadsheet – was helpful just to track against what we wanted to spend – we wanted a lovely wedding without going overboard.

Where did you splurge and where did you save?
Food is something that was important to us so we wanted to have two really large grazing tables so this was part of a splurge but also a saving at the same time as Beth sourced all the ingredients and created the vision and then the venue put it together for us.

How did you choose your photographer?
We wanted to make sure we had someone local – we looked at a few Devon based photographers and really just wanted something quite natural and fun and that is when we found Emma!

The dress
Dress was from The White One and I bought it when I was back visiting Australia, was a lovely thing to do with my mum. I wore my grandmothers necklace and found some earrings from Anthropologie that complemented it. Shoes were also from Australia, a brand Ziera, I wanted a bit of fun and colour so went for mustard shoes and as I am already tall it was so great to wear flats for the day.

The suit and bridesmaids
We didn’t do traditional suits – Ed and the groomsmen wore chinos from All Saints – Ed’s shirt was tailored by a friend of ours who is a tailor at P Johnson and the waistcoat and blazer were just found online. The bridesmaid dresses were also an Australian purchase from a fun brand called Gorman that is all about bold colourful prints.

Theme or colour scheme
Colour and lots of it!

Flowers 
We used Roberta at The Good Florist for the bridal bouquet, button holes and my hair piece – she was great at creating a fusion of Australian and British flowers. We also had lots of Eucalyptus and foraged greenery in the venue which was done by Mairi Hunt at Neadon.

Decoration
We went for a rustic feel so hired some pieces from Virginias Vintage – like an old cart, barrels and school benches and Rustic Love for pieces for the table setting, cake and drinks reception.

Food
Instead of canapes we had 2 large grazing tables during the drinks reception. The meal itself was something we got to create and the incredible team at Neadon made it happen – it was feasting style – homemade sundried tomato focaccia. whole roasted cauliflowers with tahini, honey roasted beetroot and goats cheese salad, dauphinoise potatoes, citrus green bean salad, Slow cooked Moroccan lamb (from the farm) and a side of salmon. For desert it was homemade Brownies and lemon tarts with Chantilly cream– we still have friends coming to us and saying it was the best wedding food they have had.

Wedding cake
We loved our wedding cake and was so lucky that a friend made this for us – it was 3 different flavours – carrot cake, courgette, pistachio and lime cake and spiced apple cake. Ed doesn’t like cake so she hid some Haribo on the top for him which was a nice touch!

Entertainment
We had a band in the evening called Salt Water Soul – they were great at keeping the dancefloor full all night.

Who supplied the stationery?
We used Paperless Post and some templates from Marry Me Paper Boutique from Etsy for our stationary.

Where did you go on your honeymoon
We did a minimoon on The Lizard peninsula for a few days after the wedding – we never got to a bigger honeymoon before Covid happened.

Personal touches
Our talented friend, Katie McCurrach Artwork did a hand drawn map to guide the guests through the moor from the ceremony to the reception. Ed’s mum also made our wedding favours which were a delicious homemade tomato and apple relish with apples from the garden. We didn’t realise we had done a DIY wedding until our flat was filling with things for the day and we were doing cocktail testing and deciding how many lemons and limes we would need for the drinks. Beth and her sister also did the table flowers themselves.

Special moments 
The ceremony was a massive highlight for us however our other favourite moment was after climbing Haytor for photos we arrived at the venue and were able to go into the cottage incognito and watched from the window upstairs all of our family and friends on the lawn at the drinks reception.

Advice for other couples
Make sure there are touches that show you as a couple in your day.

Biggest surprise 
After doing quite a DIY wedding, that we could actual sit back, watch it all unfold and really enjoy ourselves.

 

 

Supplier Shout Outs

 

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON EMMA STONER

www.emmastonerweddings.com / www.emmastonerweddings.com/blog / FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM

 

 

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